Dr Wolfram has a reputation for making sweeping claims. Once described by Wired as “the Bob Dylan of physics”, he is a reclusive and controversial figure who has always defiantly done his own thing. Born in London in 1959, he studied at Eton and Oxford, dazzling and infuriating his teachers in equal measure and leaving the university without graduating. He published his first scientific paper at the age of 15, completed a PhD in particle physics at the California Institute of Technology, and had joined the faculty and been awarded a MacArthur “genius” award, worth $128,000, by the age of 21.

via The Economist.

Barth CD I/2 10:24 am

testify: http://goo.gl/UFPs0

10:37 am

"called by the Church into the Church, we ourselves become the Church into which we are called" http://goo.gl/fgK1z

10:53 am

"the content of the Bible & the object of its witness is Jesus Christ as the name of the God who deals graciously with man the sinner"

10:54 am

"the Bible becomes clear when it is clear that it says this one thing: that it proclaims the name Jesus Christ"

11:15 am

"there has never yet been an expositor who has allowed only Scripture alone to speak... no one does that, for no one can"

11:55 am

"if we are not to dispute the incarnation... we cannot contest the use of philosophy in scriptural exegesis" http://goo.gl/BR2kL

Barth, CD 1/2, p. 729:

In attempting to reflect on what is said to us in the biblical text, we must first make use of the system of thought we bring with us, that is, of some philosophy or other. Fundamentally to question the legitimacy of this necessity would be to question whether sinful man as such, and therefore with such possibilities of thought as are given to him, is called to understand and interpret the Word of God which encounters us in Scripture. If we cannot and must not dispute this, if we are not to dispute the grace and finally the incarnation of the Word of God, we cannot basically contest the use of philosophy in scriptural exegesis.

Barth, CD I/2, p. 711:

To be a member of the Church in relation to Scripture which founds, maintains and rules the Church, means not only to hear, receive and believe the Word of God, and so in one's own life to become a man directed and consecrated by the Word; more than all this it means to take seriously and understand as one's own responsibility the effective operation of the Word, its being continuously expressed and heart, its being continuously proclaimed and made fruitful.

The Word of God wills always to be newly and more widely heard in the Church, and beyond the Church lies the world, where by the Church it also wills to be always heard. Because of his freedom which is grounded in this Word, a member of the Church cannot retain a passive, indifferent and merely waiting role in face of this will of the divine Word, as though anyway, in its own time what has to happen will happen. Certainly, it will happen, but not without us. We have seen that we ourselves stand at the present end and goal of the way which the Word of God takes in approaching men. We ourselves are thus present when the way leads on into the Church and the world.

Called by the Church into the Church, we ourselves become the Church into which we are called. Yet we cannot merely note that the Church is calling and wait to see whether and how far the Church will continue to call. Rather we ourselves have become the Church in person, and as such have been made responsible for its future. And this means in concrete terms that we are responsible participants in the great event by which Holy Scripture lives and rules in the Church and in the world.

Barth, CD I/2, p. 709:

It is said that H.F.Kohlbrügge one answered the question: When was he converted? by the laconic reply: On Golgotha. This answer, with all its fundamental implications, was not the witty retort of an embarrassed and unconverted man, but the only possible and straightforward answer of a truly converted Christian.  The events of faith in our own life can, in fact, be none other than the birth, passion, death, ascension and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the exodus from Egypt, its journey through the desert, its entrance into the land of Canaan, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and the mission of the apostles to the heathen. Every verse in the Bible is virtually a faith-event in my own life...

In comparison with this, what can be the value of the more or less reliable insights which, apart from these testimonies, I may have in myself? Is there a miracle story that I can relate from my own life, which, especially if it is genuine, will not be totally dissolved in this divine miracle story, and which therefore will hardly be worth relating in abstracto? Have I anything to testify about myself which I cannot testify infinitely better if I make my own the simplest ingredient of the Old Testament or the New Testament witness?

Have I experienced anything more important, incisive, serious, contemporary than this, that I have been personally present and have shared in the crossing of Israel through the Red Sea but also in the adoration of the golden calf, in the baptism of Jesus but also in the denial of Peter and the treachery of Judas, that all this has happened to me here and now? If I believe, then this must be the right point of view. If this is the right point of view, what other faith events in my life should I and could I wish to seek? What, then, becomes of the bold assertion with which I claim first this and then that crisis and turning-point, and the gradually my whole life, as a sacred history? And what becomes of the defiant and shrinking doubt and despair about all exalted and exalting moments, and finally about my whole life? However high may rise or however deep may fall the waves of life's events, as they are perceptible to us from within and below, the real movement of my life, the real events in which it is clear to me that in the whole dimension of my existence I belong to God, both at the flood and ebb, are secured from the other side, by the Word of God Himself.